Strange Light & Sound: Ghost at Panera?

Yesterday, August 16, 2009, Judy, Sebastian and I went to brunch with Paul Boyle, David Boyle and Hyunwook Shawn Kang at Panera Bread on Wilshire Blvd. and Fifth Street in Santa Monica, CA. While sitting there having a conversation around noon, there was a sudden loud strange noise and light that lasted about a second. Everybody heard the noise (even though to me it seem louder because it did not "bother" or "intrude" on the others as it did me) because I brought it up.

The noise was a loud high-pitched screech, a cross between someone scratching their fingernails across a chalkboard and a high-pitched squeal of a small animal or, even more accurately, the squealing sound a small rocket makes sometimes when lighting fireworks in the backyard during July 4th and the fire escapes the bottom of the rocket in a loud squeal as the rocket veers off path in a wrong direction.

At the exact moment the screech happened, a light six inches below the ceiling shot across the restaurant (about 25 feet) from the center of the room out the window on 5th Street. Nobody saw the light because I immediately asked. Not one person saw it, yet the fast moving light gave off a distinct glow. In fact, nobody seemed concerned about the sound , which I thought was extremely loud!

The light was exactly like reflected light off a large mirror (which reflects sunlight on a wall) that passes across a surface, except this light was not only very bright, but its form (elliptical of about 2 feet in length) was raised out from the surface of the ceiling about 4-6 inches. It was so bright that it gave off a glow and lit up the room like a flash from a camera, only it was only about 30% the strength of a normal flash.

I was instantly startled by this sound & light. I was as alarmed that nobody else seemed to pay it any significant attention because to me the sound was so loud and sudden, and the light (which nobody saw) was so bright, unusual at 12 noon in a room with huge surrounding plate glass windows. We were sitting at a long table (Paul, Judy and I had our backs right next to the window) right next to the windows, where light was pouring into the room. When I pressed everyone about the sound, there was disagreement. One person said it was a baby (except there was not one baby in the room anywhere), and another person said it was the latte' machine. They quickly dismissed the "sound" becaue it was just a sound, and I suppose we are surrounded by sounds. Nobody else seemed to know, and everyone went about ordering their brunch.

I cannot get the incident out of my mind. It was so clear. I am sure that it was a spirit presence, a ghost, of some kind. It was my first experience seeing such an entity.